Captive Bride (26 page)

“Did you tell them all this?”

“They made it clear they won’t go after a kidnapped Chinese woman, but a missing storekeeper whose business has been burned might get their attention.”

Jeremy rubbed his furrowed forehead. “Why would someone take Huiann?”

“I’ll tell you on the way. We have to move fast.” Alan pushed past Jeremy into the room and saw why he’d blocked the doorway. Cynthia Dodge stood in a corner of the one-room apartment with a blanket wrapped around her naked body.

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Alan was too worried about Huiann to feel more than a flicker of surprise. He pushed Jeremy toward his bureau. “Get dressed. Hurry!”

“I—I’m not sure this is a good idea.” Alan growled with impatience and quickly blurted the story to get Jeremy moving. “The man who took her is a Chinese crime boss. Huiann came to America to be his bride, but he planned to put her in a whorehouse. She ran away and ended up in my shop.

Now he’s taken her and I have to get her back.” He glanced at Cynthia. “I can see this is bad timing, but I didn’t know who else to ask for help.” Cynthia clutched the blanket tighter around her.

“That poor girl! It’s terrible that the police won’t help her simply because she’s an Oriental. Jeremy, you must go save her!”

Alan blinked in surprise. He’d never have expected support from Cynthia Dodge. It showed an unexpected side of her. Perhaps she was one of those young ladies who read Gothic romances and daydreamed about villains and the heroes who vanquished them. Maybe she didn’t understand the real danger Jeremy might be facing.

“Give me a minute and I’ll be right out.” Jeremy’s voice was deeper than normal, his expression somber.

“Yes, Alan, I do have a pistol and I’m a crack shot.” In less than a half hour they were back on the street in front of Xie’s establishment. The streets were a little busier now as it was almost morning. The growing crowd of pedestrians would’ve been a better hiding place for two men casing a building except for the fact that their Caucasian faces drew attention to them.

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“Are you sure about this?” Jeremy asked. “Walking right in the front door doesn’t sound like much of a plan to me.”

“I want to approach Xie as one businessman to another. Short of having a shootout, which will likely get both of us killed—and Huiann too—offering to buy her is my best bet.”

“So I’m supposed to stand here and wait for you to
not
come out then go get the police? How will I know when you need help? I should go with you. The man can’t kill two white citizens. This isn’t the Wild West any longer.”

“I don’t want to drag you into this more than I already have. If I’m not back in an hour then get the police.” He took his revolver from his belt and handed it to Jeremy. “Take this. Going in armed won’t help make my case.”

Before Jeremy could argue, Alan zigzagged through the traffic of pedestrians and pushcarts toward the house across the street.

He went straight to the large man posed like a statue near the dark red door. “My name is Alan Sommers. I’m here to see Master Xie Fuhua about a business matter.”

Alan stared confidently into the man’s eyes, which were mere slits above his heavy jowls. His round face and bulky body gave him the appearance of an oversized baby but his stance, light on the balls of his feet, ready to attack, announced his lethal nature.

“He’s expecting me.” Alan hoped the man understood English.

Another long moment passed before the man nodded. “Wait.” He pulled a cord beside the door, Bonnie Dee

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which was answered by a young boy dressed in a scarlet robe with gold collars and cuffs. Most of his head was shaved except for a braided queue. The heavyset guard said something and the boy disappeared into the house, letting the door close behind him.

The big man stood motionless, waiting. Alan glanced down the street to where Jeremy was buying food from a vendor’s cart. He couldn’t linger indefinitely without drawing notice. Hopefully Jeremy would have the sense to find a better vantage point from which to spy.

The door opened and the boy relayed a message in a high-pitched voice. The guard ushered Alan inside, walking behind him into a mirrored, scarlet-draped foyer that looked like a man’s fantasy of an Oriental palace.

After searching Alan for weapons, the man prodded him to walk down the corridor toward the back of the house. There were open archways on either side at intervals through which he glimpsed elaborate antechambers. A trace of opium smoke wafted from one unoccupied parlor in which lavishly pillowed couches were scattered around a glossy black piano. In another, the floor and ceiling were painted black and the walls were hung in black fabric. Chains and manacles were attached to the walls.

Here and there servants cleaned the sleeping whorehouse. A woman scrubbed the floor on hands and knees. A pair of small girls in gray jackets and trousers dusted the gilt frames of erotic-themed paintings that decorated the corridor. A hunchbacked man pulled dead leaves from a large potted plant.

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Alan followed the boy’s bobbing queue down another hallway, passing closed doors—perhaps bedrooms where the women entertained clients—

before the boy stopped in front of a large carved wooden door. He felt as if he was standing before the lair of a dangerous beast.

The boy opened the door then backed out of the room, head down, folded hands pressed to his forehead.

The guard prodded Alan in the back and he stepped into Xie Fuhua’s office. The man behind the desk didn’t look like a beast or a devil. His dark hair was shot with gray and cut short with no queue. He wore a Western-style suit, and a pair of half-moon spectacles perched on the end of his small nose. A cigar burned in a dish beside him, sending up streams of blue smoke that curled around his head. He looked up from the papers on his desk.

Pretending to be busy. He’s not that nonchalant.

He knows who I am.
Alan gazed into the dark eyes and forced his own face to remain neutral no matter how much he felt like launching himself across the desk and ripping the man’s throat out.

“Mr. Sommers, sit down.” Xie gestured to an upholstered leather chair in front of the desk.

Alan noted the presence of another man in the corner as he crossed the soft carpet and sat on the edge of the chair, ready to leap up if necessary. But Alan didn’t believe Xie would shoot him in cold blood. Not here in his office anyway, where it would stain the carpet.

Folding his hands, Xie rested his chin on top of them. “What can I do for you?” As if he was a customer seeking service.

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“You know who I am and why I’m here,” Alan said bluntly. “Chua Huiann.”

“You want to pay for her services, which you’ve enjoyed these many weeks?”

“She sewed for my shop and I have customers waiting for her to fill their orders. How much would it cost to buy her freedom so she can continue to work for me?”

Xie unfolded his hands and placed them on the desk, tapping a finger against the blotter. “Well, I would need considerable recompense for the weeks of service you stole from me. She wasn’t yours to use.

You should’ve returned her to me. Instead, you forced me to spend time and resources locating her. I had to hire extra men. Every day adds up.”

“How much?”

His tapping finger stilled and the half smile on his lips disappeared. “You’d pay anything for her, wouldn’t you? We both know it’s not about her abilities as a seamstress. You fancy yourself her protector, her hero. Maybe you even imagine you love her.”

Alan remained silent, furious at how easily the man read him. The clock on the mantel ticked. A floorboard creaked beneath the weight of the guard who’d escorted him.

“How much?” he repeated at last.

Xie sighed. “The truth is, it’s not about the money for me either. It’s about someone taking what belongs to me and returning it used.” He leaned over his desk and stared hard at Alan, his voice suddenly low and hissing like a serpent about to strike. “
No one
takes my things and goes unpunished.”

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The hair at his nape rose and Alan longed for the weight of the Colt pressed against his belly. Two guards in the room. How many more stood between him and the street, and how could he get Huiann and himself out of here if Xie refused to make a deal?

He stuck to the script he’d planned. “I didn’t know where she came from until recently. I didn’t mean to take something of yours, but she did good work and I want to hire her again. I could use the income she brought in, especially since my store inexplicably burned last night.” He tacked on a threat. “Pointing the police toward the man who hired the arsonists won’t make up for the destruction, but having Chua Huiann back might help.”

Xie laughed and leaned back in his chair. “Do you honestly think you’re in a position to threaten me? I can promise you the police would find no connection between me and the unfortunate fire in your store last night.”

“They’re already on the trail of the thugs you hired, and those two didn’t seem the loyal kind. If they’re caught, they’ll point the finger at you to save themselves. A fire in this city is serious business. The fire marshal isn’t going to take this investigation lightly.”

The other man’s laughter subsided to a feral grin and he shook his head. “This is a most pathetic attempt at blackmail, Mr. Sommers. Admit it. You have nothing to threaten me with, no cards to play, nothing I need, probably not even enough money to pay me for my investment in bringing the girl over from China.

You have no claim over her. She’s legally my property Bonnie Dee

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and I have the papers to prove it should the authorities question me.”

If he said one more word about owning her, Alan was going to lose control and attack him, bodyguards be damned.

“Let me add one more thing.” Xie’s narrowed eyes gleamed. “Huiann has already been punished for running away, and the more you wheedle and threaten, the more punishment she’ll receive. You have the power to hurt her or to convince me to be lenient.” A shivering chill and burning heat possessed him simultaneously at Xie’s threat. Alan had nothing to counter with. “What do you want?”

“Recompense, but not financial. I’ll show you what I mean.” Xie lifted his hand.

Alan started to stand, but the guard grabbed his arms. Alan pulled against him while snapping his head backward. His skull connected with bone, and the guard grunted, but the meaty fists didn’t release their iron grip.

“The more you struggle, the more the girl suffers.” Xie’s voice stopped him as if he’d doused Alan with ice-cold water.

He’d have to play this out, see what the man wanted. Perhaps some abject humiliation on his part would be all the payment Xie would require to soothe his damaged pride. Maybe an opportunity would arise to turn the tables on him. And there was always the trump card of Jeremy fetching the police to come to their aid. Hope was not lost yet.

Xie barked out an order in Chinese and the guard pulled Alan through the doorway. He dragged him 246

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down the corridor back to the black room with the manacles.

The oppressive darkness surrounded Alan, pushing in from all sides, stealing his breath and accelerating his already rapid heartbeat. The urge to fight his captor was strong, but he remained calm while the thick-necked guard shackled his wrists in iron manacles attached to chains that threaded through an eyebolt in the wall.

The moment the guard turned away to receive Xie’s next order, Alan tested the strength of the bolt, pulling against it as hard as he could without being obvious.

Xie crossed the room to a low table also equipped with manacles and chains and rested his hand on it.

“Now your punishment, and your testing, begins.

You’ll observe a demonstration that Chua Huiann belongs to me, which you must endure without moving or speaking. Remember, your every reaction will only make her torment greater.”

Alan clenched his jaw and continued to pull against the bolt in the wall. The room might be fashioned to represent a dungeon, but it was only an erotic playroom. The bolt sunk into the wooden wall beneath the black-velvet covering loosened. A tendril of hope unfurled inside him.

Chapter Eighteen

The bedroom door was thrown open once again, jerking Huiann out of her uneasy rest. As she bolted upright, pain flared from her lower back all the way down her legs. Her buttocks had received the worst of the beating, but Liu Dai had aimed plenty of blows at her thighs and even her calves. She’d stopped trying to be brave and hold back her cries and afterward had sobbed until she fell asleep on her bed.

Liu Dai stood in the doorway again. Madam Teng would seem like an angel to her now. He strode across the floor and instinctively she cringed away from his hand. She hated this display of weakness and the whimper that rose in her throat. Was the whipping going to begin again or did Xie have a worse, more intimate abuse planned for her?

Liu took hold of her wrist and pulled her off the bed. Huiann gripped the hook in her other hand where she’d held it even as she slept, as if it was a talisman that would protect her from harm. While he dragged her downstairs, she tucked it into the cuff of her dress—safe unless Xie forced her to remove her clothing.

Once more she prayed to Buddha and her ancestors to give her strength to survive whatever ordeal was coming.
Help me to be brave and never give up, like
Clever Rabbit who was swallowed by death and still
came out alive.
Her body tensed and her legs felt as liquid as water as she stumbled down the hall beside 248

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Liu Dai. The uncertainty was the worst part. Would she be raped, tortured…killed?

He thrust her into a room devoid of light. No, not completely. Flickering candles shone in sconces on the walls, but the blackness of the ceiling, floor and walls robbed their light. Her eyes adjusted and focused on shapes in the room. Xie stood beside a large table. A lamp flickered on a smaller table nearby, casting eerie shadows on his already frightening demon face.